Many Americans are blaming new technology for aiding terrorism, writes Duncan Campbell As United States forces converge on Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone has not been cut off. But calls to his satphone relayed via an Inmarsat satellite 40 000km over the Indian Ocean are going unanswered. His number 00873 682505331 was disclosed during […]
The ruling elite may have missed out on lessons in reasoning NO blows BARRED Sipho Seepe It is difficult to look back at my schooling with fond memories. How could I, when the philosophical grounding of education was to ensure that schools were conducted in such a way that “the natives will be taught from […]
KHADIJA MAGARDIE, Johannesburg | Friday IN the wake of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, speculation has mounted that the government is under pressure to show its commitment to ending global terrorism by pushing through draft legislation so dogged by controversy that it received mention in Amnesty International’s 2001 human rights report. […]
A second Look Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela There are many troubling questions raised by Sipho Seepe’s article (“Where are the so-called leaders?” September 21 to 27), not least the question of the extent to which fear has paralysed those in leadership and silenced them from speaking out against some of the indefensible statements made from the president’s […]
Howard Barrell and Jaspreet Kindra The HIV/Aids epidemic has taken on “shattering dimensions” and now accounts for one-in-four of all deaths, according to the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) report into the virus that has been suppressed by the government. The report, in the opinion of many the most authoritative of its kind into the effects […]
Duncan Mackay After years of steady improvement, women’s distance running has finally come of age. When Japan’s Naoko Takahashi set the world marathon record of 2hr 19min 46sec in Berlin on Sunday she achieved a landmark that had long been the holy grail for every female runner. A sub-2hr 20min time had been a target […]
FIVE people were wounded, two of them needing hospital treatment, when a pet hyena broke loose in a northeast Nigerian city. The hyena, used for entertaining crowds by its owner Ismaila Ibrahim, broke its chain and attacked passers-by in the Gomari district of Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, a report by state-run Borno Radio said. […]
Peace protesters hold it aloft as do the advocates of war. The Right rallies round it but so do radicals. It’s now a flag of defiance and of mourning. Ed Vulliamy explores the many meanings of the Stars and Stripes In a landscape smothered by the dust of death Pompeii in our lifetime three New […]
Gregory Mthembu-Salter South African National Defence Force (SANDF) troops may be heading for Burundi, despite the absence of a ceasefire in the long-running and bloody civil war. The SANDF troops are likely to form part of a special protection unit (SPU) for Hutu politicians returning from exile to join a new transitional government, scheduled to […]
SOCCER Neal Collins These are tough times for Bafana Bafana’s big defender Pierre Issa. South Africa’s former Marseille player, who went on loan to Chelsea and made no impact last season, has now linked up with Gianluca Vialli’s Watford. But if he expected life to be easier in the second level of English football, he […]
There have been 105 739 cases if cholera reported in KwaZulu-Natal since August 2000, the province’s health department reported this week. The fatality rate is 0.215% and 228 have died. Cholera is a bacterial infection, which is contracted by drinking contaminated water or by eating food which has been in contact with contaminated water, flies […]
The world’s media is battling for ringside seats as war looms in Afghanistan. Stefaans Brmmer reports from Dushanbe, Tajikistan The uniform in Hotel Tajikistan is the khaki camera jacket, as worn by gung-ho journalists worldwide. Its proliferation of pockets conveniently stores notebooks, pens and lenses, but also the wads of cash and official passes that […]
CRICKET Peter Robinson If you hadn’t heard of the Summer Spice Series, fear not: you’re about to hear an awful lot about it over the next few weeks. This is the name dreamed up mainly to cover India’s travels around South Africa for the next two months but which also encompasses Kenya’s visit to this […]
Khadija Magardie South Africa’s controversial draft anti-terror legislation will remain on the back-burner at least until the middle of next year In the wake of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, speculation has mounted that the government is under pressure to show its commitment to ending global terrorism by pushing through draft […]
analysis Khulekani Mathe Who sets the agenda for Adult Basic Education and Training (Abet) in South Africa? Before 1994 the agenda was set in Pretoria by the National Party government. Underpinned by a theory of uneven development based on racial discrimination, apartheid produced an education system that relegated black people to the bottom of the […]
AUTHORITIES in war-ravaged Burundi said on Thursday they were still holding 96 soldiers and seven civilians, suspected of playing a part in a failed coup on July 23. Twenty of those held on remand are officers, according to chief state prosecutor Gerard Ngendabanka. Loyalist troops arrested more than 500 soldiers who tried to overthrow the […]
Trainer Mike de Kock has an exciting filly on his hands in Brazilian import Velvet Green, and even carrying top weight from the worst draw she looks like the one to beat in the R200000 grade 2 Spring Challenge for fillies and mares over 1600m at Gosforth Park on Saturday. Punters who allowed the four-year-old […]
Frank Keating on the great Basil D’Oliveira, who celebrated his 70th birthday this week. Or did he? The one-time enemy of the state has a few times been welcomed back to the new South Africa as prophet and treasure. “Oh sure, they’ve even given me full red-carpet treatment in the Orange Free State,” says Basil […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Eastern Cape health MEC Bevan Goqwana has been relieved of his duties following an appearance in court this week on charges of medical aid fraud. Goqwana will, however, continue to draw his monthly salary until his fraud case has been finalised. Land Affairs and Agriculture MEC, Max Mamase, has been appointed […]
MOTORRACING Alan Henry It was an oblique tribute to Murray Walker’s key role in the shaping of Formula One’s televised image over the past three decades that Jaguar driver Eddie Irvine felt obliged to blurt out a dose of light-hearted, if hardly diplomatic, criticism of Bernie Ecclestone’s grand prix show at Indianapolis last weekend. Invited […]
So the “small-minded, vacuum-brained anti-American commentators” have been identified by your reader John Valentine as taking up position in your paper (September 21). One of those “morons” happens to be Noam Chomsky, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1972 to 1992 he was cited 7449 times in the Social Science Citation Index. His […]
Within days of the attack on the United States, women were drooling over Bin Laden BODY LANGUAGE Rehana Rossouw Now that the shock and heartbreak of the attack on the United States has subsided, it seems appropriate to analyse another issue that has triggered heated debate in recent weeks: why some women find Osama bin […]
The controversial clause on foreign investment went a little further than recommended Barry Streek The British government is “very concerned” about the decision by the African National Congress majority in Parliament’s safety and security committee to ban foreign investment in South Africa’s private security industry, saying it contravenes the 1998 agreement between the two countries […]
Barry Streek In a new privatisation move, the government has released draft legislation enabling private companies and equity partners to become involved in South Africa’s strategic petroleum pipelines. The draft Petroleum Pipelines Bill, published in the Government Gazette, provides for the appointment of a Petroleum Pipeline Regulator to regulate the operation of the petrol pipeline […]
Suzan Chala South Africa’s freedom fighters won a significant battle recently when an out-of-court settlement secured the pensions that had been due to them since 1996, but had never been paid. Despite its noble language and intentions, the Special Pensions Act of 1996 which paved the way for monthly payments to former members of Umkhonto […]
Neva Makgetla They say you should be careful about wishing for something, because you might get it. Business leaders should take this to heart. They insisted on restrictive, free-market policies and now they have got their wish. The result has been massive job losses, slow growth, falling investment and a plummeting rand. From the standpoint […]
channel vision Robert Kirby Strange how our television broadcasters, the moment they know they’ve got a popular programme, like to pig out on commercials. I’ve seen as much as eight minutes of an uninterrupted commercial break before a final rugby match; the inclusion during the match, at about two-minute intervals, of the dreadful squeezebacks so […]
food Melvyn Minnaar A local fowl expert has landed on the world’s gastronomic stage with his nomination for the Slow Food Award 2001 Special Jury Prize. Noel Honeyborne of Fowls for Africa is the first South African finalist; he was selected from 550 entries worldwide. At a taste-off at the Herbert Baker restaurant in Parktown, […]
Excluding HIV-positive pupils from school is unlawful and unconstitutional, Minister of Education Kader Asmal has said.
PRESIDENT George W Bush has picked career diplomat Cameron Hume to be US ambassador to South Africa, the White House announced on Tuesday. Hume, who served as ambassador to Algeria from 1997 to 2000, is presently a senior advisor at the US mission to the United Nations in New York, where he served as political […]
ANGOLA’S army has discovered a large cache of heavy weapons and munitions near the airport in Mavinga, a town in the southeastern province of Cuando-Cubango, a private radio report said on Tuesday. A large number of portable rocket launchers, a ZU-23 anti-aircraft battery, B12 cannon munitions, and explosives were found in the cache, according to […]
ANGELA QUINTAL, Cape Town | Thursday TONY Yengeni on Thursday announced his resignation as his party’s chief whip in Parliament, but said he would remain an ordinary MP pending his trial for corruption arising from investigations into the multi-billion arms deal. His successor will be decided upon at a meeting of the ANC’s national working […]